I suspect I found the “don’t bother” point. Since April, I’ve been putting in 6-7 hours a week. 3 on the trainer, 3 on the rowing erg. After four years off, there was a fair bit of progress in the first eight weeks, and now not really anything since June.
I trained and raced from 1980 to 2020, and most 18-54 was 15-20 hour weeks. Most of that fitness vanished with the long time off.
I’ve done sweet spot, then threshold, then VO2, 2-3 hard days a week and the rest easy. And zip. Granted, I’m 59 now. But, I’m starting to think that 3-4 hours on the trainer isn’t enough to really get anywhere, and same for the rowing.
6-7 hours of one thing each week, ok, I think I could make progress on that. But 6 hours split between two modalities. I have my doubts.
I found that as I got older. Mid 70’s now. The biggest improvements came with more volume. It’s easy for me to do vo2 and high end workouts. It produces some gains but they seem to go away quickly. For me the hardest is long tempo and TT stuff. 3 years ago I did 2 months of 250mile weeks. Mostly Z2. I got much stronger. Maybe it’s an age thing or genetics.
I was racing triathlon for 10 years averaging around 10-15 hours a week for all three sports. In 2016 I went back to get my graduate degree and for about 2 years averaged 3 hours of cycling per week.
It kept the flame on, but that was about it. I thought I would bounce right back after my studies, but it didn’t. I was fit for commuting to work, helped with stess, otherwise 3 hours for me was close to “don’t bother”.
IMHO if you are limited to 3–4 hours on the trainer, you should set yourself more humble and ultimately, more realistic goals. If you have raced for 40 years and trained 15–20 hours, then a decline in form is completely expected. In fact, slowing down the decline is the best you can hope for — simply because you once were supremely fit. If you no longer find cycling fun, you could simply replace training rides with fun rides where you, well, just ride
The second thing I noticed is that you are also rowing, but I haven’t heard anything of strength training. If I were you, I’d either stop rowing or stop cycling and spend 2–3 hours per week in the gym. That’ll have a much better return than rowing a little and cycling a little.
I did about four years of lifting 6 days a week and no aerobic. I realized this year that I need to balance things out. Current routine
Day 1: AM lift lower body PM: erg on slides for 60min
Day 2: AM lift upper body PM trainer for 60min
Day 3: same as day 1
Day 4: same as day 2
Day 5: same as day 1
Day 6: same as day 2
All the erg is zone 2 HR steady state, the trainer days are the harder stuff.
I no longer own a shell or a bike and am not planning on spending thousands to get those back
It’s pretty humbling to realize that about 9 hours a week is basically just holding steady when it’s split between strength, bike, and erg. Fiber-specific adaptations are a double-edged sword if you don’t want to do just one thing.
You didn’t mention you were lifting six days a week in your initial post! That changes everything, and it is even less surprising to see your fitness on the bike declining. Here are some thoughts that come to mind:
You are doing a lot. In addition to spending 3-4 hours on the bike and 3–4 hours on the rower, you are lifting 6 days a week. If, say, you spend one hour in the gym per session, that’s an additional 6 hours, i. e. you train 12–14 hours/week.
Put succinctly, 50 % lifting, 25 % bike and 25 % rowing. Those are your current priorities and you should expect your gains to follow these priorities. Ask yourself whether this ratio corresponds to your priorities or not. If you want to get faster on the bike/trainer, then you need to up the share you spend on the bike.
You are doing 6 double days. I don’t think that’s advisable. I have only heard of people doing up to two double days.
I noticed that you don’t give your upper/lower body a rest as you combine days on the rower with lower body work (Day 1), and likewise spend time on the trainer after upper body work. I’d try to lift less and have days where I am only on the bike.
Have you tried adapting your gym work to leave your legs fresh(er)?
Rest days become increasingly important with age. I’d experiment with adding a second rest day. I tried doing 6 days/week, but 5 workouts/week (at the same total volume and intensity!) work much better for me.
This may change percentages, but I don’t think changes the fact that your current focus is lacking and that you don’t give (parts of) your body time to rest and recover.
I have the feeling you’d see more results if you reinvested the time you currently spend in different ways, e. g. you do two proper 60-minute strength sessions as opposed to six 20-minute strength sessions. The overall time spent training would be the same, but I reckon the results would be much better. Ditto for days where you focus on endurance, period.
